


Trouble on Their Shirts

by romanticalgirl



Series: behind the song [6]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-14
Updated: 2013-04-14
Packaged: 2017-12-08 12:07:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/761139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/romanticalgirl/pseuds/romanticalgirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Looking to get hurt.</p><p>Based on the Bruce Springsteen song "Working on the Highway"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Trouble on Their Shirts

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted 6-4-08

Another car and another pass by, teenagers going too fast and honking, catcalls catching on the breeze and blowing back to him like echoes. He adjusts his hard hat and tightens his grip on the metal grip of the flag, directing the flow of traffic around the driving jackhammers and the thick smell of asphalt burning the back of his lungs.

It’s Friday, and some of the crew are getting paid tonight, and he can hear them along the side of the road, talking about bars and babes, beer and bikes and he closes his eyes for a second and thinks back as much as he lets himself. He would give almost anything to be one of them, looking for trouble in the shape of a girl or a bottle or a Chevy burning up the highway. Instead he’s got the heavy weight of metal around his ankles and a slow shuffling walk that used to be a dance until it became something else.

Yesterday is two years ago now, and the sight of her is still so clear in his head. She couldn’t help catching his eye and catching his heart, her dress the same color as the red of the flag that waves in the corner of his eye. The dress flew out as they danced, too short a time by the time he’d coaxed her away from the wall. 

It was innocent enough until it wasn’t, every night and every minute spent together, closer and closer until he was wherever she ended and she was everywhere he began. They both forgot themselves long enough to fall into each other. She was like honey on his lips, sweet to kiss and thick on his tongue, nectar and innocence like he’d never tasted before. She opened up to him – her mouth and her arms and her body – and he sank inside her, trains rumbling in the distance and bees buzzing and humming just above his bare back. They fell asleep at sunset and woke in darkness, fumbling their way to his car and Florida, running until the land ran out.

She laughed through the open window, her hair whipping around her head as they few along the highway, hitting Interstate 75 and never stopping. He found a job at a garage and she found a trailer, and then her brothers found them. He hasn’t seen her since the Sheriff pulled him out of bed and her oldest brother, Tommy, threw clothes at both of them, calling on God and mercy and cursing him straight to hell.

The ride home was long and hard, and he listened to the highway, memorizing it beneath the wheels. It sounds different now, out here, on the edge of the asphalt, hot rods and family cars and the shift and growl of the machinery as it works its way past him. He holds the crowds back and then releases them to the open road.

Sometimes he catches sight of a familiar truck, the gravel crunching as it spins its wheels, ignoring the orange warning signs and coming close enough that he can taste the exhaust. It’s never her, always her brothers, coming almost close enough. He never flinches and always looks them in the eye until they turn tail and run. 

One day though, he knows it’ll be her behind the wheel. One day that truck will stop and she’ll lean over the seat, open the door and invite him inside again. 

Five to ten with two down on a Friday night, and somewhere she’s waiting on him, dancing alone in a red dress, and while he’s waiting for the highway to end


End file.
